To think it’s strange I need a vaccine to meet newborn abroad

[FlowerPowerM]

Going to visit a relative in the US who has a newborn. We’ve all had a to have a vaccine before meeting them - and apparently that’s the standard there. I’ve never heard of this before and wondered are they just being over cautious? We don’t seem to have anything like that here. Are babies in the UK being less protected than in the US?
Just to clarify I’ve had the vaccine and it was tetanus, dyptheria, whooping cough and then we had to have the flu vaccine which we had had anyway.

Was it actually that you needed it to qualify for the visa - not meet the baby?

I think it’s sensible to have whooping cough vaccine when meeting a newborn these days. I would probably request it for close family if I was having a baby. It’s a triple vaccine, right? Hence the inclusion of tetanus and diphtheria?

In Australia it's common to have the whooping cough vaccine if you haven't had a booster. Babies are extremely vulnerable.

I was furious when I discovered my DP's had lied about having it when DS was born. There was an epidemic, but they didn't get it because they had to pay. Just lucky my DS didn't pay!!

They were the first to push the free covid vaccine though!

No it’s not to do with the visa, it’s at the request of the parents. I had a baby not that long ago but no one ever mentioned vaccines for visitors. I never would have thought of it. I guess I would have been covered for the whooping cough from pregnancy. Yes triple vaccine all together.

Which one?

Who ask for it?

Yes also we had to pay £60 each for it.

In the UK they give pregnant women this booster at a certain point.

Sorry posted too soon

I think that is supposed to pass antibodies to the baby after it's born until they can be vaccinated and make their own.

I have seen this as a thing online. I can see the logic of a baby is too small to have had certain vaccinations, so me being vaccinated will make me less likely to pass to them. But I suspect it's got wrapped up with vaccines as an identity politics thing (much worse there than here), anxious parenting and in laws who people don't get on with/trust in general. No one has ever asked me in the UK before I was allowed to meet their baby.

Which vaccine? May not be needed if you’re up to date? If whooping cough a pregnancy booster gives you 4-5 years immunity from memory.

As a while, the UK has a much more comprehensive programme of immunisations. The US government is calling back their immunisations and many more people are unvaccinated than the UK. I think you’ve been very sensible in protecting yourself!!

Surely you were already up to date with those anyway ? Possibly not the flu vaccine but the others ?

The NHS recommends a whooping cough vaccine for pregnant women in the UK as the immunity it provides passes to the baby through the placenta and provides protection to the newborn until they have their own whooping cough vaccine at 8 weeks old. Not sure there’s enough tetanus and diphtheria going round to be much of a concern from infectious visitors.

Adults are meant to get boosters every 10 years but it seems like this is one of the things that the NHS has cut back on. It seems like a sensible request from the parents if they are concerned that either you or others are not fully and recently vaccinated until the baby is fully protected.

It seems to be a social media thing rather than an actual medical recommendation, although the CDC do recommend that adults visiting a newborn (under 2 months) should be "up to date" on vaccinations, and the US and UK recommendations are different.

Getting a DTAP booster will also protect you against tetanus for the next 10 years, so if you haven't had a recent tetanus jab, it's no bad thing from that perspective. The US recommends a booster every 10 years whereas the UK only do this if you're at especially high risk, e.g. gardeners, or after an injury which breaks the skin, and they offer a new DTAP booster in pregnancy because receiving one in the third trimester transfers protection to the baby when they are born (this is separate to whether you have had one generally in the last 10 years).

Flu vaccine makes sense too considering this flu season is especially brutal.

I think because the antivax movement is especially strong in the US and because sick leave tends not to be as easily available, a lot of people feel very strongly pro-vaccination in a way that tends not to be present in the UK/Europe.

Almost every adult in the UK is covered by their childhood inoculations, so not a big thing for parents to worry about here in the UK.

Perhaps in the US fewer people received childhood vaccines, so % protection is less.

There’s a huge whooping cough outbreak in the USA right now, so it’s harder for parents to rely on herd immunity for their newborns who are not yet old enough to have completed the full vaccination programme. I think they’re being very sensible.

Here in the UK, vaccination rates are much higher so herd immunity can be relied upon more confidently when meeting a newborn. (Eg even if someone who is unvaccinated is meeting a newborn, because most people are vaccinated, it's very unlikely that the unvaccinated person will have encountered someone else in the community who is also infected and then pass it along to the baby).

https://www.vaccineadvisor.com/news/whooping-cough-surges-nationwide-as-vaccinations-fall/

Huh? I don't think this is true - I think the UK immunisation schedule is less comprehensive than the US.

For example chicken pox vaccine has only just been started in the UK whereas it's been standard in the US for decades. They also tend to still get covid vaccines and flu vaccines whereas in the UK these are only offered to elderly/high risk, (plus the flumist spray in schools, which admittedly isn't routine elsewhere) and routine boosters for DTAP aren't done after age 14, only in pregnancy or after an injury. NHS used to say if you'd had 5x DTAP in your life, you did't need any more whereas the US doesn't have that recommendation. (Not sure if NHS recommendation is still the same).

American here, and that’s not “the standard” in the US. It’s not unheard-of, but the vast majority of American parents aren’t telling people they need to get a vaccine before they’re allowed to meet a newborn baby.

As an American, I didn’t realize the chicken pox vaccine wasn’t a routine one in the UK until I saw people on Mumsnet talking about it. The last time I personally knew a kid who got chicken pox was in the late ‘90s.

Thanks for all the replies, really good to get some insight into it.

Are you talking whooping cough?

In Australia, it’s in the childhood vaccine schedule but there are recommendations now that parents, grandparents and others planning to be in close contact with a newborn (too young for the vaccine) get themselves a booster. I don’t know whether we have to pay for it or not as future grandparents.

https://www.unicef.org.au/stories/light-for-riley?srsltid=AfmBOoqS9Iqk1rvJbYQUZDHfCMLQPkGamKvrZipY3kgixG_M8ZRxxJsE

See the link in this https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-14/parents-share-video-of-baby-rileys-final-moments/7087434 for a 30 day old baby who did not survive whooping cough.

What is strange about it?
Different countries have different rules!

Its the same in Australia. Expectant Mothers are given the vaccine also, but their policy must be based on different research as they seem to think anyone meeting the baby should have it also. The NHS guidance is that the booster passes immunity into the baby, so I'm not sure why others would need it. Or maybe it's just a cost saving thing from the NHS as they need stricter criteria before offering things for free, and Brits aren't likely to pay for vaccines.

Sensible parents, there.

Apart from filtering out people who are antivaxxers, the expense of hospital treatment for a newborn with polio, diptheria, whooping cough or influenza would be immense - and flying to the US would potentially put all travellers at risk of contact with people from locations where vaccination is not anywhere near as common.

Children die of whooping cough—they are too young to get the vaccine and do the adults need to get it. There have been whooping cough epidemics lately. So yes, you need to get it. But fear not! Under the rule of terror we now have in the US they are rapidly eliminating vaccines so children and adults can now get measles and whooping cough and HPV and a wide variety of illnesses and deaths quite freely.